Life Cycle Assessment of Maize-Germ Oil Production and the Use of Bioenergy to Mitigate Environmental Impacts: A Gate-To-Gate Case Study

Abstract

The need to reduce the environmental impacts of the food industry is increasing together with the dramatic increment of global food demand. Circulation strategies such as the exploitation of self-produced renewable energy sources can improve ecological performances of industrial processes. However, evidence is needed to demonstrate and characterize such environmental benefits. This study assessed the environmental performances of industrial processing of maize edible oil, whose energy provision is guaranteed by residues biomasses. A gate-to-gate Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach was applied for a large-size factory of Northern Italy to describe: (i) the environmental impacts related to industrial processing and (ii) the contribution of residue-based bioenergy to their mitigation, through the comparison with a reference system based on conventional energy. The results showed that oil refinement is the most impacting phase for almost all the considered impact categories. The use of residue-based bioenergy was found to drastically reduce the emissions for all the impact categories. Moreover, Cumulative Energy Demand analysis revealed that the use of biomass residues increased energy efficiency through a reduction of the total energy demand of the industrial process. The study demonstrates that the exploitation of residue-based bioenergy can be a sustainable solution to improve environmental performances of the food industry, while supporting circular economy.

Development of an Industrial Environmental Index to Assess the Sustainability of Industrial Solvent-Based Processes

“…Following a thorough review of a wide-enough array of metrics and their aggregation into a composite index, this article sets the base towards developing quick and easy-to-use measurements in sustainability assessments of chemical processes. The theoretical work in this article paves the way for future applications of the IEI for sustainability assessments in various chemical and manufacturing industries [13,14]. This final and single index would allow for more insightful and relevant relative assessments of different processes or process pathways without having to detail each and every component of the assessment.…”

“…C p is a metric that compares the output of an 'in-control process' to the specification limits [14]. In Equation (8), USL and LSL refer to upper and lower specification limit, respectively, and σ corresponds to the standard deviation of the process.…”

El maíz y la nixtamalización: modificación de sus componentes, técnicas de proceso y enriquecimiento de tortilla.

“…40 Por otro lado, el germen del grano del maíz es utilizado para producción de aceite mediante un proceso de extracción o prensado en frío, para después refinarlo, su uso principal es en la cocina debido a su alto punto de fusión. 41 Al aceite de maíz se le han añadido sustancias bioactivas como polifenoles y flavonoides, provenientes de especies vegetales, esto con el fin de enriquecerlo y darle un valor agregado, aportando aromas y sabores, que a su vez ofrecen un beneficio a la salud del consumidor, como antioxidantes. 42 Otro de sus usos es como sustituto de los glóbulos de grasa en la leche para yogurt preparado, con la finalidad de interactuar con las proteínas de la leche, como refuerzo en la estructura del gel, logrando una menor sinéresis y un incremento en la aceptabilidad.…”

Biogas from Agri-Food and Agricultural Waste Can Appreciate Agro-Ecosystem Services: The Case Study of Emilia Romagna Region

“…Contrarily, other researchers focused on the development of alternative sources of bioenergy as suitable alternatives to dedicated crops. Different works highlighted the large amount of agricultural residues potentially available for bioenergy generation, while others investigated potential environmental and socio-economic benefits deriving from their exploitation [77,78].…”